Chapter 1

A Dragon’s Wishes
By: Nickel Bristle

“Spike! Turn out that light!” Twilight ordered from her bed, still seeing the lone lamp shining on the young dragon’s bed in the corner of the room. Spike looked over the top of his comic book, noticing Twilight’s sharp glare directed right at him.

“Come on, Twilight. This is the best part!” he shouted back in response, flipping the page of the book in front of him.

“We have a lot to do tomorrow to get ready for the Equestria Games! You need as much sleep as everypony else.” With not so much as another word, Twilight used her magic to snuff out the candle in the lamp, sending the library into the darkness of the night. Spike blinked at the sudden change in lighting but reluctantly stirred back into his bed, placing the unfinished comic book by his side.

“Good night, Spike.” Twilight said happily with a short yawn before falling asleep in her bed. Spike turned over, looking out at the stars and moon of the night sky through the library window, his head still abuzz with the story of the comic.

“Man, those Saddle Arabian Tales sure are something!” he whispered under his breath as a yawn came over him too, slowly closing his eyes. “I wish I could have a magic lamp genie to grant wishes for me.”

As the last words were said in another yawn, the young dragon easily fell asleep comfortably in the bed, crawling up under his favorite blanket.

As the night went on, Spike’s audible snoring lingered through the library, everypony sound asleep in their bed. The darkness of the room was only interrupted by what seemed to be a glowing green cloud of smoke, seeping in through the window from the sky above the library. Hovering over the young dragon’s bed, Spike turned over and laid on his back, scratching his belly. The mysterious glow grew closer to the dragon, feeling pulled in by some force of attraction. As it reached the lines of his scales, the cloud swirled carefully around him before sinking deep into his body. Spike’s eyes shot open in the midst of his sleep for a second as his green dragon eyes glowed brightly before his eyelids fell back, leaving him to his slumber.

---

As the sun rose in the morning sky, the light peered in through the open window, shining on Spike’s bed. Filled with a yawn, the young dragon sleepily opened his eyes and crawled out of his bed.

“Huh? Did I oversleep again?” he drowsily asked, looking over to Twilight’s empty bed which was freshly made for the next night to come, fitting into her morning routine. Looking down to his small bed, covers and pillow tossed around from his sleep, a small note caught Spike’s eye.

“Dear Spike,” he read out loud, holding up the piece of paper, “Gone to talk to Mayor Mare about the Ponyville Team for the Equestria Games. Please visit all of our friends and tell them to meet me at the Friendship Express Train Station by sundown.” Signed with her name at the bottom, Spike carefully put the note on the table next to his bed, stretching to begin the day.

“Looks like Twilight doesn’t need my help with the meeting. Alright! All I have to do is gather the girls and meet her at the train station. How hard can that be?” Spike asked out-loud to the empty library, not so much as disrupting the sleeping Owlowiscious. His stomach growled as he skipped down the steps, once again noticing the time outside.

“Maybe I should make some breakfast first. Aww, I wish I had a nice basket of crispy hay fries to eat!” the young dragon spoke to himself before belching out a puff of green flames. Normally this occurrence would follow with a scroll from Princess Celestia, but Spike was surprised to see a hot basket of fresh hay fries fall into his claws from the trail of flames. Blinking several times, his eyes glowed from their natural green color as he couldn’t believe his wish came true.

“Whoa! Since when does Princess Celestia deliver food?” he asked, picking up a bunch of fries from the basket to stuff in his mouth. Holding on to the basket of hay fries, Spike made his way to Sugarcube Corner to see what Pinkie Pie was up to.

Getting to the front door of the bakery, Spike was almost surprised to see a puff of color the size of a beach ball fly out the top window. The young dragon looked over to the counter where Mrs. Cake stood. The two sort of looked at each other with that silent question of “Pinkie?” before Mrs. Cake let Spike go up the stairs to Pinkie’s room.

“No. No. No! No! No! NO!” Pinkie screamed, launching more fluffy balls of each color every which way as Spike walked in through the doorway.

“Umm… Pinkie?” Spike asked, knocking on the door to the room. Pinkie turned around, wearing one of the fluffy bunches on her head.

“Spike! Hooray! You’re here!” Pinkie smiled and pulled him over to the mess of colorful fluff that she had made in her closet and the floor of the room. Spike looked around, still confused as to what was going on or what had made the cheerful pony so distraught.

“Now tell me, do you see a big set of pom-poms that have a rainbow design to them?” she asked, looking at each one of the pom-poms she had scattered on the floor for a second before jumping to the next.

“I don’t see any ones with that color, Pinkie.” Spike said as he looked over of each of the balls of fluff. There was yellow, white, grey, blue, purple, pink, indigo, violet, green, but no set of pom-poms that were the colors of the rainbow put all together. Pinkie sighed, falling down to the floor of her room.

“I don’t know what I did with them, Spike. Maybe I never had them in the first place?” she trailed off, trying to remember when she had bought the inventory of pom-poms that now laid all over the floor to her room, the hallway and the street outside of Sugarcube Corner from her throwing them out of the window.

Spike moved his arm around the pink pony’s shoulders, noticing the slight deflation in her usually very poofy mane. “I’m sure you’ll find it, Pinkie. You just have to keep looking.”

“Oh, I wish I had my rainbow-colored set of pom-poms! I can’t cheer on Dashie without them!” Pinkie closed her eyes as she shouted her desire out-loud. Like clockwork. Spike let out another belch of green flames, this time materializing the set of pom-poms that Pinkie was looking for the entire time. The pink pony’s eyes widened as she squealed happily, picking them up and her cheerleader uniform all in one quick pink blur.

“Yay! Spike! I knew you could help me!” Pinkie cheered, doing a little dance now that she found the pair of pom-poms that she so desperately needed.

“Yeah, but why did Princess Celestia have them?” Spike asked, scratching the back of his head as his eyes glowed once more. Pinkie looked curiously at the young dragon for the question.

“Princess Celestia? What does she have to do with anything?” she asked, her head on full tilt in her questioning.

“Well, I usually only get packages from the Princess through my dragon’s breath. It’s mostly scrolls and junk mail, but today she sent hay fries and your pom-poms!” he explained, noting the events that happened this morning.

“Huh, I wish I knew, Spike!” Pinkie shrugged with her pom-poms as Spike belched out another package, this time it was something that he could recognize.

“Wait a second, this is the Inspiration spellbook!” Spike shouted, holding the decorated cover that was slightly burnt from the green flames. Quickly, he opened the book to see nothing but blank pages. “There’s no spell in it though!”

“Well, that’s weird! What’s a spellbook without spells? It’s just a book! But then, what’s a book without any words?” Pinkie rambled on as Spike suddenly realized what had happened.

“I… ate the book.”

“You hate the book? Why would you hate a book? It doesn’t even have any words or pictures in it.”

“No Pinkie, I ate this book! I swallowed it so that Rarity could stop using it to change everything in Ponyville! The spell had already stuck on her so it didn’t really do anything. But now, I think the magic is still missing from the book!”

“Did I miss that? I don’t remember any changes to Ponyville.” Pinkie continued to ramble, her hoof on her chin. Spike groaned, hitting himself with the cover of the book.

“Focus Pinkie! Now, the magic left Rarity a while ago. I wonder where it is now.” Spike asked out loud, looking intently at the empty spellbook in front of him.

“If I could change something in Ponyville, I would make it that every street had balloons! But then I would need a balloon cannon. Oh, I wish I had a balloon cannon!”

As soon as the pink pony’s words were spoken, Spike felt something in him build up inside. It felt as though he was going to toss the hay fries that he scarfed down while walking to Sugarcube Corner, puffing out his cheeks as he wanted to aim away from Pinkie. Unable to hold back anymore, the young dragon unleashed a large belch of green flames rather than his breakfast, materializing the balloon cannon that Pinkie had so desired earlier. She gasped at the shiny contraption that filled a decent amount of her room.

“Spike! I didn’t know you could grant wishes!” Pinkie said happily, pronking over to the cannon. “Ooh, I wonder what else I could wish for…”

“Wish?” Spike said groggily, unaware of the large balloon cannon that came from inside him.

“I wish for Ponyacci’s clown costume!” she shouted happily as another puff of green fire brought Pinkie her coveted jester’s outfit.

“I wish for a mountain of rock candy!”

Spike held the flames back before letting out a good half-minute of flames to materialize the amount of candy to add up to Pinkie’s desired mountain.

“I wish for chocolate shake!”

“Pinkie!!!” Spike groaned as he let out another burst of flames for a glass of chocolate milkshake as tall as Pinkie was. “Stop!”

The pink pony casually sipped on her shake, noticing the young dragon’s anguish at having to materialize so many things in such a short time. “Are you okay, Spike?”

Stuck on his back, he could only groan in hopes that nothing else came up. Pinkie gasped before picking up the unconscious dragon on her back.

“I have to find somepony to fix Spike!”

---

Knocking her hoof frantically on the door of Carousel Boutique, Rarity opened the door happily before noticing the distressed Pinkie Pie and the knocked-out Spike on her back.

“Rarity! We need your help!” Pinkie urged, pushing herself in through the door of the shop.

“Umm, Pinkie Pie? What is is this all about? I’m sort of in the middle of something.” Rarity asked, gesturing over to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy on the platform with the unfinished Equestria Games uniforms on.

“Well, Spike came over when I was looking for my rainbow pom-poms to cheer on Dashie,” Pinkie began, waving a hoof to the confused Rainbow Dash standing over on the side. “And then I said I wish I had my rainbow pom-poms.”

Just like that, another burst of green fire came from Spike’s mouth, materializing the rainbow pom-poms that Pinkie had just described, falling on her head. Rarity raised her eyebrow at the sudden appearance of such cheerleader attire.

“And it happened! Just like that! Whenever I said I wished for something, Spike would bring it to me like magic! He brought me so many things that I think he’s sick now and he was talking about how you were under some spell that did the same thing and now you need to fix him!”

“Whoa, hold on a minute!” Rainbow Dash said, flying over to where Pinkie and Rarity were standing. “So, you’re telling me that Spike can grant any wish just like that?”

“Yeah, but-”

“I wish I was a Wonderbolt!” she shouted, expecting herself to be magically changed into one of her heroes. “Hey, what gives!”

“It has to be something you can hold! He can’t make something that doesn’t make something in front of you!” Pinkie explained as Rarity and Fluttershy watched on, looking at each other as the other two continued to test the phenomenon.

“Alright, I wish I had my Wonderbolts Pin!” Rainbow Dash tried again as Spike’s burst of flames brought her the shiny pin from her room in front of her. “Awesome!”

“Wait, this does seem familiar…” Rarity trailed off, her thoughts somewhat fogged of the time that she tried to change all of Equestria.

“I wish I had Spitfire’s goggles!” Dash continued as Spike continued to materialize the items. “And Soarin’s jacket! And Fleetfoot’s socks!”

“Rainbow Dash, stop this instant!” Rarity shouted, putting her hoof down as Spike groaned again from his unconscious state, continuing to belch more Wonderbolts memorabilia. Pinkie laid him down on the ground as Fluttershy rested her hoof on his forehead.

“He doesn’t look good at all, Rarity.” she said quietly, taking a step back.

“Come on! I still need Firefly’s boots!” Rainbow Dash protested, trying to get back to the magical wish dragon in front of her.

“That is enough!” Rarity shot back, pressing her hoof into Dash’s chest. “Can’t you see that poor Spike is ill from this dark magic!”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t want things.” Dash muttered under her breath, putting on Spitfire’s flying goggles. Rarity turned to the young dragon on the floor of her shop, resting a hoof on his cheek.

“I know you helped me out, Spikey-Wikey. I only wish I knew how to help you.” she said quietly, resting her head on his chest as another object materialized from Rarity’s indiscript desire. It was the all-too familiar spellbook of Inspiration Manifestation. Carefully opening to the page of the spell, only the last piece of text was there.

“Only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free.” she spoke as a spark went off in her eyes. “Of course!”

“You know how to fix this?” Fluttershy asked as Pinkie began chewing on the back of her mane as if it were cotton candy in her fit of distress. She sighed before standing up, holding the blank page of the book in front of her with her light-blue magical aura.

“It’s worth a shot,” Rarity began, taking a deep breath before speaking clearly. “I do not have to wish for anything because I already have what I truly desire.”

Spike’s eyes shot open in a feverish green glow before the smoke trailed out of him, leading back into the the pages of the book. Rarity quickly shut the spellbook close and poofed it out of the room as Spike began to stir from his unconscious state.

Opening his eyes, he was met with most of his pony friends looking over him, but the closest one towards him was Rarity.

“R… Rarity?” he asked weakly, still feeling the effects of the dark magic that consumed his being. Rarity hugged the young dragon as Rainbow Dash blew a raspberry behind them.

“As if that’s true, Rarity wants more than all of us combined!” she snarked before Pinkie shoved her hoof in her mouth, eating what seemed to be a real bunch of cotton candy.

“Yes Spike?” Rarity asked, smiling as the shine in Spike’s dragon green eyes went back to normal.

“Did you… did you really mean that?” he asked, hearing what she had said very clearly.

“Of course I did, Spike. You are a very dear friend and I wouldn’t ask anything more of you.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as Pinkie and Fluttershy began to tear up at the scene.

“I… I don’t know what to say.” Spike sputtered out, “Rarity, I-”

Cutting off what he was about to say, Rarity tightly hugged the young dragon. “Now we’re even, okay Spikey-Wikey?”

Pulling away from the embrace, Spike tried his hardest not to show any sign of him blushing to the mares in front of him as he nodded. Rarity couldn’t help but giggle in response.

“Good! Now, since you all are here, I could use some help getting ideas for our team’s outfits! Let’s get to work, shall we?”

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